Friday, September 06, 2013

[hohlyguw] Easy shapes in polar coordinates

Lines through the origin and circles centered on origin are the shapes with the simplest formulae in polar coordinates. What are the next simplest shapes?

In Cartesian coordinates complexity is ordered by exponent, e.g., cubic curves.

Motivation was describing plots on a city laid out on a circular grid.

What if we allow two points of origin?  Or a point and a line?

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